Documents tell more about Fitzgerald's first
loveGinevra King was model for 'Gatsby' character and others

PRINCETON, N.J. -- The Princeton University Library has acquired a rich
collection of documents that reveal previously unknown details about American
author F. Scott Fitzgerald and his first love, Ginevra King.

King was a beautiful and wealthy debutante from Lake Forest, Ill., with
whom Fitzgerald had a romantic relationship from 1915 to 1917. King's
family has donated her diary and typed versions of her almost weekly letters
to Fitzgerald from that period as well as one original letter from Fitzgerald
to King and a seven-page untitled short story by King that shows some
of Fitzgerald's influences.

"None of Fitzgerald's biographers have seen these letters before
-- although researchers knew they existed," said Don Skemer, curator
of manuscripts in the library's Department of Rare Books and Special Collections.
"So a certain amount of writing about their relationship has been
speculation. And there has been a lot of writing about it because she
was so central to his image of the American dream and women."

Even though she married William H. Mitchell, "King remained for
Fitzgerald an archetype for the alluring, independent and upperclass woman,
ultimately unattainable by someone of a modest social background like
himself," Skemer said, noting that this continued even after Fitzgerald
met Zelda Sayre, the quintessential Jazz Age flapper who became his wife.
"Arguably, Ginevra was a model for Daisy Buchanan in 'The Great Gatsby'
and is recognizable in many other characters."

Fitzgerald would use details of their meeting in his story "Babes
in the Woods" in the Nassau Literary Magazine (May 1917), a piece
that he reused with minor changes in "This Side of Paradise"
(1920), his first novel, which was set at Princeton.

While readers may obtain one view of King through Fitzgerald's writing,
the newly unveiled materials present a somewhat different picture. "In
her letters, we hear Ginevra King's authentic voice, unfiltered by Fitzgerald
in prose fiction," Skemer said.

"These materials give us a much more complex picture of the relationship
between the two," added James West, the Edwin Erle Sparks Professor
of English at Pennsylvania State University and the editor of the ongoing
series, "The Works of F. Scott Fitzgerald" (Cambridge University
Press).

"Before, we had to rely only on Scott's voice and on the pictures
or the characters based on Ginevra in his fiction," West said. "But
it turns out that she was rather more of a person than he might have realized
and that their relationship, which he depicted as one-sided, was, in fact,
very emotional. She cared a great deal about him too."

The materials were donated by King's daughter, Ginevra Mitchell Hunter
of Marshall, Va., and by King's granddaughters, Cynthia Fuller Hunter
of Loveland, Colo., and Ginevra King Chandler of Ukiah, Calif. At Princeton,
they complement the library's extensive holdings on Fitzgerald, who entered
the University as a freshman in 1913.

Mining for dialogue

While home in St. Paul, Minn., on Christmas vacation, Fitzgerald met
King in January 1915. At the time, she was a student at the Westover School,
a women's preparatory school in Middlebury, Conn.

Fitzgerald visited her at the school. On Feb. 20, 1915, King writes in
her diary: "Scott came in afternoon. It was so wonderful to see him
again. I am madly in love with him. He is so wonderful .... Marvelous
time."

The letters given to Princeton are actually 227 pages of typed correspondence
placed in a large binder. At some point -- probably in the late 1920s
or early 1930s -- Fitzgerald had King's letters typed and bound. The cautionary
title page reads, "Strictly Private and Personal Letters: Property
of F. Scott Fitzgerald (Not Manuscript)."

"It is unclear why Fitzgerald had the letters transcribed,"
Skemer said. "Perhaps he wanted to exploit them for bits of dialogue."
The author had a lifelong habit of maintaining notebooks of people, sayings,
aphorisms and parables, which he used in his writing.

While the originals were destroyed, the letters are no doubt reproductions
of the handwritten text, West said.

"They're genuine, I'm sure of that," he said. "They're
her voice -- the expressions of a 16-year-old girl. I've read the letters
against the diary, which chronicles the same period, and they match as
to what happens on particular days."

The letters from Fitzgerald to King also were destroyed -- at his request
after the relationship ended. On July 7, 1917, King writes: "I have
destroyed your letters -- so you needn't be afraid that they will be held
up as incriminating evidence. They were harmless -- have you a guilty
conscience? I'm sorry you think that I would hold them up to you as I
never did think they meant anything. If it isn't too much trouble you
might destroy mine too."

After Fitzgerald's death in 1940, his daughter, Scottie, sent the bound
letters to King. She retained them until her death in 1980, never showing
them to anyone.

The ideal girl of his generation

Fitzgerald's first biographer Arthur Mizener, a 1930 Princeton graduate,
noted in "The Far Side of Paradise" (1951) that King was "the
extraordinary 'nice' girl, the beautiful, magnetic girl who was always
effortlessly at ease.... The other men were part of her charm, for though
she conquered everywhere quite deliberately, she remained essentially
untouched, free. This was the girl he was, without much conscious intention,
to make the ideal girl of his generation, the wise, even hard-boiled,
virgin who for all her daring and unconventionality was essentially far
more elusive than her mother -- and, in her own way, far more romantic."

After reading the letters, West has a somewhat different view: "I
think she was a match for Fitzgerald. She had a strong personality. She
was not vain or self-centered. She was an open, direct young woman. I
like her.

"He always depicted himself as a poor boy who idealized the love
of a rich girl who was rather standoffish, perhaps even a little calculating.
But judging by the letters and the diary, that's not true. She seems to
have responded strongly and emotionally to him."

On March 12, 1915, King writes to Fitzgerald, "Oh Scott why aren't
we ------- somewhere else tonight? Why aren't we at a dance in summer
now with a full moon, a big lovely garden and soft music in the distance?"

Despite the ardor expressed in her letters, King was "aware of the
choices: That she was a child of wealth and in selecting her serious suitors,
she probably couldn't consider a middle-class boy from St. Paul, no matter
how charming and clever he was," West said.

A tantalizing tale

This theme is borne out in the short story that is part of the materials.
Evidently, King sent the story in a letter to Fitzgerald. In the story,
King imagines a time 10 years later, in the 1920s, when she has been unhappily
married to a Russian count. King seeks out Fitzgerald, now a rich and
successful movie producer. She makes her way to the apartment of 'Mr.
Fitz Gerald' and is admitted by his tall, somber butler.

What happens next? Readers will have to wait, Skemer said. The full text
will be published in an upcoming issue of the Princeton University Library
Chronicle, along with commentary and illustrations.

"What makes the story tantalizing," West said, "is that
it contains basic elements of the story line of 'The Great Gatsby': the
beautiful but restless wife, the wealthy but inattentive husband and the
old flame, now rich and handsome, living in elegant quarters. A few of
the signature details from 'Gatsby' are even present, including the mysterious
servants, the 'Wedding March,' which Gatsby and Daisy hear at the Plaza
and a ticking clock.

"I suppose it's a common enough fantasy when romance breaks off.
Both sides must think about what it's going to be like years from now
when they see each other again. Fitzgerald is the one who embodied all
of that in 'The Great Gatsby.' Still, it's very intriguing to see it already
in this little story that she has written."

"We know that it was hers," Skemer said. "But it's more
complicated than that, in that they were passing ideas back and forth
in their letters. I can't believe that some of him is not in that story."

The end of the relationship

The final letters in the binder have to do with King's marriage to Mitchell.
On July 15, 1918, she writes to tell Fitzgerald about her engagement.

He responds on July 21, 1918, in the only hand-written letter contained
in the materials. The letter is mailed from Camp Sheridan, an army base
near Montgomery, Ala., where Fitzgerald met Zelda. He writes: "This
is to congratulate you -- I don't know Billy Mitchell, but from all I've
heard of him he must be one of the best ever. Doesn't it make you sigh
with relief to be settled and think of all the men you escaped marrying?"

In 1937, Fitzgerald and King met for a final time in Hollywood, where
he was working at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Mizener concluded, "to the
end of his days the thought of Ginevra could bring tears to his eyes."

The Princeton library's holdings include the F. Scott Fitzgerald Papers,
a comprehensive literary archive containing his original manuscripts,
working drafts, corrected galleys, personal and professional correspondence,
autobiographical scrapbooks, photographs and other original materials.
Frances Scott ("Scottie") Fitzgerald Lanahan (later Smith),
the Fitzgeralds' daughter, donated the papers to the library in 1950.
Acquired at the same time were the Zelda Fitzgerald Papers and annotated
books from Fitzgerald's personal library.

The Princeton library has successfully sought out additional manuscripts
and related materials since that time. The materials are available to
researchers using the library's Department of Rare Books and Special Collections.
For more information, contact Skemer at (609) 258-3184 or dcskemer@princeton.edu.